Booking In Page 17

  After a few minutes of examining the layout from the exter­ior, I stepped into the lobby. Right away, a pretty young thing who apparently knew me by sight introduced herself as Meg’s executive assistant. Her name was Beth Appleby, and she asked me to walk with her while she did a briefing for my appointment. We crossed the lobby’s pink stone floor to a glassed-in elevator and rode up to the fifth level.

  “Meg’s running sixteen minutes late,” Beth said. “But I’m sure you expected that of such a busy woman.”

  “Eighteen is what I expected,”

  “What? Oh yes, a little joke.”

  “Very little.”

  “We’ll put you in the Blue Room. I’m sure you’ll find it will pass the time nicely. We’ve put out several Bill Evans CDs for you, and this week’s issue of The New Yorker is on the iPad.”

  “You people believe in homework.”

  “Why don’t you make yourself comfortable here?” Beth said, indicating a deep-blue sofa fixed up with a half dozen pillows done in multicoloured covers. Most of the rest of the furnishings and the carpets in the very large room featured shades of blue. The Bill Evans CDs, a CD player, and the iPad with The New Yorker sat on a glass coffee table. The glass was a passionate colour, more green than blue.

  “Over there,” Beth said, her graceful arm doing a sweep in the direction of a wooden table painted a light robin’s egg blue, “there’s coffee in the stainless steel canister. Sumatra? I think you’ll find everything satisfactory.”

  My mouth spread in a comprehensive grin, a look that I hoped Beth took for joy on my part. She turned her cute self in the direction of the door and disappeared.

  I poured myself a cup of Sumatra, flipped through the Bill Evans CDs until I found the 1961 trio performance at the Village Vanguard, and set the play button at “My Foolish Heart.” Then I leaned back on the sofa and closed my eyes, listening to the sublime Evans.

  “Hey!” a male voice shouted. “Turn that shit off!”

  I opened my eyes. A tall guy across the room was standing next to a high-backed chair that had kept me from noticing his presence earlier. Such an idiot this guy had to be. I didn’t say so out loud, but I definitely thought it. Beth would be put out if I told her about this insult to the peace and comfort she’d gone to great lengths to guarantee for me.

  The guy had handsome features and was casually dressed in a pair of light-brown chinos and a long-sleeved black T-shirt with “Straight Outta Compton” printed across the front. I realized I knew who he was. A few days earlier, I’d seen him standing on a back yard porch applauding Charlie Watson’s dive into his swimming pool. The idiot was Brent Grantham.

  “This is a coincidence,” I said. “I left a message on your cell this very morning.”

  That seemed to slow the guy’s thinking processes for a moment. “You’re Crank?” he said.

  “Crang,” I said. “I can get cranky, but it takes severe provocation.”

  “I don’t do callbacks to people I’m not already in business with.”

  “This isn’t business.”

  “What then? You’re looking for a donation to some half-assed charitable cause?”

  “This cause isn’t half-assed. It’s a whole ass, and it’s the one you sit on.”

  “Listen, buddy, I’m used to a lot more respect than what you’re showing me.”

  “I can’t think why.”

  Grantham had a highball glass in his hand. It appeared to be almost empty, just a bit of dark-brown liquid on the bottom. He put the glass down on a small table next to the high-backed chair and started making his way across the room toward me and the deep-blue sofa.

  “I’m a Grantham, you jackass,” he said. “You can’t come into the Grantham building and feed a bunch of crappy insults to the son of the owner.”

  “How about I make a suggestion then,” I said. “I suggest you give the Walter Hickey letters back to Acey Hickey. She owns them.”

  Brent kept coming until he was standing over the sofa. I didn’t get up.

  “Make yourself at home, Brent,” I said. I nodded at an armchair done in red and yellow stripes.

  “I’m already in my home, you moron,” Brent said. “This is one of my business homes. I got an office right behind me on this floor.”

  He waved at a corner of the Blue Room, at the same time giving me a steely look. When I didn’t flinch, he chose to sit down in the bright armchair.

  “Coffee’s good,” I said. “You want some?”

  “What I want is for you to screw off out of here,” Brent said. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an iPhone. “I’m calling security.”

  “What’s your ma going to think when I’m not around for our appointment?”

  “My mother wouldn’t give the time of day to a prick like you.”

  “Maybe she’ll be interested in hearing about the letters you lifted from Fletcher’s bookstore.”

  Brent hadn’t dialled for security yet.

  “I can only make a guess about where you’re getting your information, Crang,” he said. “But what I definitely can’t fathom is why a guy like you should even give a damn about my personal affairs, whether they have anything to do with a bunch of letters or not.”

  “Good question, Brent.”

  “What’s the answer?”

  “I could say I’m sick of seeing people I kind of like getting pushed around by bullies I definitely don’t like.”

  “That’s a useless damn answer.”

  “Maybe so,” I said. “But it’s got a practical component. This case I’ve been working on the last week or so, I haven’t been paid by anybody yet for horsing around with unpleasant guys of your type, and the likelihood is nobody connected to the case will ever throw a few bucks my way. That means doing a good deed or two is probably the only satisfaction I’m ever going to see.”

  “Satisfaction is one thing you’re not going to get out of me, not if you go around making such dumbass accusations.”

  “That’s what I like about you, Brent, the consistency. A jerk from beginning to end.”

  Brent let a couple of beats go by. “You been talking to Charlie,” he said. “That bitch, she’s where you got the bullshit about the Hickey letters.”

  “Charlie’s one of the people I pretty much like,” I said. “As I hope I’ve made clear, you aren’t.”

  Judging from the expression on Brent’s face, stormy thoughts were gathering in his head. Maybe I’d gone too far with the insults, though I didn’t think I’d taken my best shots at him yet.

  “The reason you’re here,” Brent said, “is to see my mother, correct?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. She asked me to come by.”

  “I’ll make one thing clear, buddy boy,” Brent said. “If you say anything to her about the letters, anything about me maybe having them, I’ll tell her it must be Charlie. She had a crush on me, like a lot of dames do, and when I broke off our little fling, she must have planted the letters at my place to get even.”

  “You’re a duplicitous son of a gun, Brent.”

  “Several steps ahead of a loser like you.”

  “Here’s where you and I stand, Brent,” I said. “It’s very simple. All I want out of you is the Hickey letters. Hand them over to me or deliver them to Acey herself. Very basic, when you think about it, a small matter of honouring the letters’ true ownership. If you resist, I’ll do whatever it takes to lay the pressure on you. Legal pressure I’m talking about. Maybe even bring the cops into the picture.”

  Brent started to speak. I raised my hand, asking him to hold on a minute. “Whether you continue to act like a mutt,” I said, “or you choose to do the right thing, I’ll still think of you as a total fool with no respect for true beauty.”

  “What in hell are you talking about now?”

 
“A guy who insults Bill Evans doesn’t get a second chance with me.”

  “Like I care,” Brent said. “Even if I knew who Bill Evans was, I wouldn’t care.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about, Brent,” I said. “Your ignorance is the unforgiveable sin.”

  Brent stared at me as if I’d slipped a mental gear. Maybe I had.

  At that moment the door swung open, and cute Beth stepped into the Blue Room with the usual big smile on her face, a laptop in one hand. She looked at me, then at Brent, and the smile slid away.

  “Brent,” she said, struggling to sound perky. “I wasn’t aware you were in the room. Or even in the building. How can I help you?”

  “You can toss this guy out on his can,” Brent said, indicating me with a jerk of his thumb.

  “Mr. Crang is due for an appointment with your mother right this minute,” Beth said. “Please excuse us.”

  Beth motioned for me to follow her out of the room.

  “The jerk back there really could make trouble?” I said to her in a low voice as we made our way to the Blue Room’s door.

  “He could,” Beth murmured back. “Big-time trouble, no doubt.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Meg Grantham’s office wasn’t as large as Charles Foster Kane’s, but it might have run a close second. Standing just inside the door where Beth told me to wait while she talked to Meg, I couldn’t make out what they were saying away over on the other side of the room. But my guess was Beth was letting her boss know that good old Brent had been busy alienating me in the Blue Room.

  Beth wound up her chat with the boss and walked across the room to fetch me. She had a stride like a runway model’s and the figure to pull it off. Taking me by the arm, she led me to Meg’s monster desk. Meg came around to greet me, her hand reaching out for us to shake.

  Meg was shorter than I had anticipated and a little more on the plump side. But she had a handsome face and beautifully coiffed black hair. The colour looked authentic without need for chemical help. Overall, I took her to be shrewd and clear-headed. Meg and I shook hands, with me giving her one more discreet sizing up. On a preliminary judgment, I could understand why Annie was so keen on her as a writing client.

  “Shall we sit over here?” Beth said, guiding Meg and me to a setting of a love seat and two armchairs next to a sweeping window that looked across to Toronto Islands. The three pieces of furniture were done in a silky-looking yellow material, a glass coffee table within easy reach of both the chairs and the love seat. Meg sat on the love seat, Beth and I in the armchairs. Beth opened the laptop on her thighs, looking expectant and ready for typing action.

  “Mr. Crang,” Meg said, “I’m crazy about your Annie.”

  “That’s mutual, Ms. Grantham,” I said. “Annie says working with you is the best job she’s had in an age, and that’s not just the money talking.”

  “Call me Meg, please.”

  “For you, I’m just plain Crang.”

  “I invited you down here, Crang, on a kind of whim because we share the same opinion of green tea.”

  “That it tastes like the Don River.”

  Meg made chuckling noises. “I might not describe it quite that vividly,” she said.

  “The tea’s no reflection on Hughie. He’s a solid guy.”

  Meg smiled. “That’s a nice word for Hughie. Solid.”

  “Which, you’ll pardon me for speaking frankly, is an adjective your other son doesn’t rate. Not in my experience. So far.”

  “Beth tells me you and Brent seemed to be having something unpleasant going on in the Blue Room.”

  “A contretemps.”

  “Perhaps you could tell me how this developed. I suspect it had something to do with Brent’s business life, but if you’ve got a particular explanation, it could be a help to me as his mother and his business associate,” Meg said. She spoke in a measured way, leaving not much doubt she wanted specific answers from me.

  “Brent’s name came up in a case I’m working on,” I said. “In one way or another, without deliberately chasing down his life story, I picked up details of his financial background. It wasn’t pretty.”

  “What were these details?”

  “That he dropped the ten million you gave him.”

  “That’s more than a ‘detail’ to most people.”

  “Yeah, ten thousand large adds up to a lot of money.”

  “Large?” Meg said, looking at Beth.

  “It’s a synonym for one thousand,” Beth said.

  “Oh, ‘large’ has replaced ‘grand?’”

  “Roughly, yes, Meg,” Beth said.

  Meg turned back to me. “So you know about Brent losing the ten million dollars?”

  “I’m surprised you do too.”

  “Indeed I know.”

  “I don’t imagine Brent shared the news of that colossal disaster with you.”

  “I keep more than an eye on both my sons’ money, how they look after it and so on. They’re going to be extremely rich men one day, billionaires, and I want to die knowing they’re good at controlling their fortunes.”

  “Hughie you feel secure about?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “Brent not so much?”

  “Not if he falls in the hands of someone like this Cedric character.”

  Meg turned to Beth, whose fingers were again whizzing across her keyboard.

  “Cedric Hollyworth, aged forty-two, born in Kingston, Jamaica, served a sentence for fraud in Texas, now residing somewhere in the Bahamas.”

  “How did you come by this information?” I said to Meg. “As I implied a minute ago, Brent doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would confess all.”

  “Brent’s accountants, and Hughie’s too, report clandestinely to my accountants,” Meg said. “That means I’ve got a direct line to everything that goes on in my boys’ money management. Right now, I’ve got everybody busy tracing Brent’s ten million. When we collect enough information and find out where exactly this character Hollyworth is hiding the money he fleeced out of my son, we’ll take appropriate steps.”

  “You’re getting warm in this hunt for Cedric?”

  “Red hot.”

  Beth chipped in again, reading from her screen. “Rum Isle. Very tiny island in the Bahamas. That’s where Cedric lives.”

  “Step two is what we’re working on,” Meg said. “That’s us finding specifically where the ten million is hidden. No doubt in a banking institution on this Rum Isle. But which one? It won’t take long to find out.”

  “Could Brent manage the same job of tracking Cedric if he put his mind to it?”

  Meg wobbled her hand, indicating this could be an iffy proposition. “The thing about Brent is he’s forever trying short cuts,” she said. “If he worked with his accountants, went at the hunt with the smarts I know he has and a touch of the diligence he’s shown very little of, especially lately, he could get as far as we have, maybe farther.”

  “The answer you’re giving to my question is a maybe?”

  “I’d be proud if he cracked the Hollyworth puzzle, but he’s not pushing with anything like the initiative it takes.”

  “In the meantime, Brent knows nothing about you and the accountants?”

  “And probably never will,” Meg said. “What I want, Crang, is for him to learn to sort out for himself how to take steps that will get him back on his own two feet financially.”

  “He’s taking steps, believe me.”

  “Crang, I don’t think I like the way you said that.”

  “At the moment, all I can tell you is that he and I don’t agree on the methods he’s using to make up some of his loss.”

  Meg looked at me, not saying anything but giving me a shot of her exacting stare. I continued to say nothing. Meg glanced at Beth. Beth shrugg
ed. I kept a grip on my tongue.

  “Very well,” Meg said. “We’ll let that slide till you’re ready to confide in me. Contact Beth when you feel the urge.”

  “Sooner rather than later,” I said. “I guarantee.”

  “In the meantime,” Meg said, “I’m told you’re representing Fletcher in this business over the Reading Sonnets, which I’d thought I would be buying but maybe won’t be.”

  “Let me ask you a question about these poems,” I said. “Just to be sure we’re on the same wavelength.”

  “As long as I get an answer to my own questions.”

  “Sure,” I said. “That’s fair.”

  “What’s the question?”

  “Why were you motivated to go after the Reading Sonnets in the first place?”

  “I suppose you could say I more or less fell into it,” Meg said. “In the last few years, I’ve been collecting things for different reasons, things connected to the arts, things that just happen to give me warm feelings.”

  “Annie told me about the Toronto paintings from the second half of the twentieth century. Rayner, Coughtry, Dennis Burton, those people.”

  “Beauty and some playful humour combined. I love their work.”

  “Right,” I said. “Where do the Reading Sonnets fit in?”

  “They didn’t fit in anywhere, except that I wanted to do something different with the library in my Rosedale house, which I always think of as my main residence. I lived there with my parents when I was a child, and my father always kept a good library.”

  “You wanted to spiff it up with some collectibles?”

  “That’s what I told Fletcher when I got talking to him at a party last year.”

  “He brought up the Reading Sonnets? The forgery of the Elizabeth Barrett Browning poetry?”

  “I loved Elizabeth Barrett Browning anyway, and the story of the forgery was wonderfully entertaining. Right away, I thought the Reading Sonnets would make a lively conversation piece in my library.”

  “Fletcher was in on the deal the whole way?”